Goaldeck

Tentative positive as I want to support the developer and think this has the base of a very fun game, although the game is still quite rough around the edges. Love the football meets deck building and the idea of some balatro-like mechanics. Runs well on Steamdeck when you change to Proton in compatibility settings. Recommendations: Difficulty spike from Gold to Platinum Cup is very sudden and too big (level 5/8 and all my opponent players are highest rarity) Final special conditions and manager skills need more variety, even after a few hours there is lots of repetition. Manager skills need some tweaks, there are few meaningful synergies and they don’t seem to have quite the ability to dramatically change skills like some of its deck building inspirations. Some of the managers related to numbers are quite useless on certain decks (eg German deck has many players with shirts numbers above 11)

This is a really cool game to spend an hour on, but it's missing something for better replayability. It feels really satisfying to start building a good team, but any loss and you're back to zero (roguelike), and when you go again every run feels a little too similar to the previous one. I'd suggest keeping the X2 match pace as a default for starters, as even on X2 it's a little slow after a few rounds. Right now it's just a fun little neat game, but it could possibly be much more. Not sure if the devs have plans to keep developing this, I hope they do.

Really enjoyable game simple game. Scratches that itch for a quick feedback mgmt loop. I played the demo and was hooked waiting for full release. As others have mentioned some QoL features like having the 2x speed be set instead of having to hold. Scaling from gold to platinum cup feels a bit too steep. Feels like if you don't have the additional manager cards your SoL same if you get an unlucky draw on the boss match (clean sheet or carnival no fun). Really fun and worth it for the value. Has the potential to be even better and the dev already made a great change with tie break being a shoot out with some influence from your team vs just straight rng

Divertido e viciante! Com os updates polindo as arestas, a experiência ficou melhor ainda, no primeiro dia estava um pouco rústico. Sugestões: 1- evitar jogadores duplicados ao mesmo tempo. 2- devolver um trocado (mesmo que não seja valor cheio de uma venda) quando os jogadores fazem panela e pulam fora, não sei se isso impacta muito no equilíbrio, mas os caras brigarem entre sí e saírem do time de graça é cruel. 3- permitir nomear o time/treinador/save no início de cada partida. só pela imersão. É isto, gostei bastante, não pude jogar muito ainda, acho que consegui vencer só metade das copas, mas agora com a adição do modo normal eu vou tentar nesse modo e quem sabe?

[h3][b][u] Unique Game, Worth Giving a Shot [/u][/b][/h3] This game combines some of the things I love most: soccer, card games, team management, and roguelikes. After playing the demo, I decided that it was worth giving a shot for $10. It is definitely not perfect and has several areas for improvement, but it is also an incredibly unique game with tons of potential if the devs address some issues and improve the gameplay. Ultimately, it is 100% worth $10 and I would recommend giving it a try. [h3][b][u] Why you should buy the game [/u][/b][/h3] - The gameplay is incredibly unique - If you like any combination of soccer, card games, team management, and roguelikes, then you will enjoy the game - The UI is very simple, clean, and understandable - The visuals throughout the game give a modernized retro feel, which I personally really enjoy - It is a true roguelike with plenty of replayability for the price - There are many ways you can upgrade players, increase stats, obtain passive effects, acquire new players, etc., that give the game a lot of potential for unique combos - The gameplay is challenging, but not too challenging [h3][b][u] What can be improved [/u][/b][/h3] [i] I will update this as I continue playing and identify more improvements and bugs to add [/i] [b][u] Gameplay improvements: [/u][/b] - [i] minor gameplay spoiler [/i][spoiler] The matches can feel very stagnant when the opponent maintains the same group of players on the field from round to round since they do not change the positions at all. It would be much more fun to have the opponent attempt to optimize their player positions to score max points and allow minimum points after every round based on what the player did the previous round. [/spoiler] - [i] minor match spoiler [/i][spoiler]The total attack/defense scores displayed on the opponent's side revert to "?" at the end of each round. It would be super helpful if they continued showing the scores from the previous round until the next round is started.[/spoiler] - [i] player spoiler [/i][spoiler] It would create more replayability if players were more randomly generated, where instead of a legendary player like L. Mesi always having 120 attack and 30 defense, it would be really cool if the attack, defense, number, and stamina were all randomly generated within player-specific or rarity-specific parameters, creating more controlled randomness. [/spoiler] - [i] ability spoiler [/i][spoiler] The idea of player upgrades is great, and I love that you get a decent number of players who you can choose to get the random ability, but I think it would be beneficial to have multiple kinds of upgrades packs instead of just the current one, like having one where you get to choose one of three random upgrades, or one where you get to see the upgrade you would get and get a reroll option, etc., where these would be unique player upgrade packs and have different costs. It would just add a little bit more variety to the player upgrade aspect of the game. [/spoiler] - [i] minor gameplay spoiler [/i][spoiler] I really like the idea of incorporating modifiers based on player numbers, but it seems incredibly difficult to build around them without sacrificing quite a bit in the process. It would be really useful for these kinds of builds if there was something that allowed you to change a player's number, such as a kind of player upgrade pack that specifically focuses on altering player numbers. This could look like changing a player number to another random number, another option for choosing a specific number or choosing from three random numbers, etc. This would help make player number builds much more viable. [/spoiler] - [i] match modifier spoiler [/i][spoiler] I have had runs where a cup's finals modifier is the same exact thing 3+ times in a row, and most recently (as of adding this) on my hard mode run I had the modifier where I instantly lose if I concede a goal at any point on each of the first three cups. I think it would be nice to add a larger variety of modifiers, and then not allow any modifier to appear twice in a single run, just because it has a major impact on survivability in some cases and it's not something you can control, so it should be more balanced so it is less impactful on a run, or at the very least there should be an option to reroll a modifier at a scaling cost. [/spoiler] - [i] minor match spoiler [/i][spoiler] It would be helpful if the stage of a cup you are on (quarter, semi, or finals) was displayed somewhere during matches. It cannot be found anywhere until you finish a match, so if you didn't pay attention or forgot what round you are on there is no way for you to know until you finish the match. [/spoiler] - [i] manager card spoiler [/i][spoiler] When the opponent has the manager card that let's them get rid of one of your players, it does not make it clear what is happening when they use it. It took me several runs of it happening to me before I pieced it together. it would be nice if something like that paused the game with a pop-up telling you what was happening so you would know what is going on. [/spoiler] - [i] minor gameplay spoiler [/i][spoiler] After a match concludes and you get the random event that occurs, it would be nice to have a larger variety of events, with some of them even being positive events, and potentially a chance for multiple events to happen at once. This part of the game feels fairly stale due to the lack of variety. [/spoiler] - I saw that this was acknowledged in another review, but the difficulty curve scales too fast when getting into gold/platinum. Instead of scaling the rarity of the opposing players as quickly, it would make more sense to me to scale the rarity much slower, but give abilities to the opposing players at a scaling rate. [b][u] Bugs: [/u][/b] - [i] ability spoiler [/i][spoiler] The ability that grants +2 stamina to teammates in the same zone did not apply to teammates with 5 or 6 base stamina when I used it most recently. If this is by design, it would be good to know in the gameplay.[/spoiler] - [i] ability spoiler [/i][spoiler] The "+25 Defense when alone in defensive zone" gives the +25 defense when alone in [i] any [/i] zone, not just the defensive one, but only sometimes. Sometimes it works as intended, and sometimes it works in any zone. Not sure what the pattern is. [/spoiler] - [i] manager card spoiler [/i][spoiler] The Engine Room manager card that boosts attack by 25 when numbers 5 and 8 are on the field at the same time does not consistently show up in the player's modifier summary when hovering over them. I don't know what the pattern is to why it shows up sometimes and not others, but I can switch my players around and it'll randomly show up or disappear. This does not impact the actual attack boost they get from it, you just don't get to see it in their modifier summary sometimes, which can make it difficult to understand all of the things that are impacting their scores when you have several at once. [/spoiler] - [i] facility spoiler [/i][spoiler] I don't know if this is intended, but when I purchase the Bigger Coaching Staff card that increases the number of manager cards you can have, it rerolls the manager cards. This was particularly annoying when I had lined up my finances to afford both the Bigger Coaching Staff card and a manager card that was in the shop, but after purchasing the facility card it rerolled the manager card I was planning on getting.

Really cool idea and a fun mix of football and roguelike deckbuilding. Building your squad and trying different combinations makes each run interesting, and the game is very easy to pick up. There’s definitely room for more content and variety in the future, but the core concept is already really solid. Looking forward to seeing how Goaldeck evolves with future updates.

A good game that can quickly become addictive; unfortunately, the difficulty level spikes too sharply starting at the Platinum level.

It’s a really great game; you don’t need to know the footballers to play it, as the developers have explained the game's mechanics in a simple way. I’m glad I stumbled upon this game while browsing the store it would have been a shame to miss out on it...

Amazing game. I have played the demo a lot and was looking forward to the full release. However, the difficulty escalates too steeply. Halfway through the cups, the CPU only gets legendary and gold cards. I though that it would became that hard later on, maybe the 2 final cups. Anyway, great game and, now, I am looking forward the fine tuning. Been playing on Steam Deck.